SPOILERIFFIC Transformers Movie Review

***SPOILER ALERT!!***

STOP NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT DETAILS ABOUT TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE!!!

You've been warned...

So I went to see Transformers the Movie with Mark Monday(!!!) night at 8pm. Here's my spoiler-ridden review...

I will go on record as saying that I enjoyed it a lot, but I wanted more outta this flick. I tried to keep my expectations low, so I couldn't be disappointed when it sucked. But that plan didn't work. I am a little disappointed because there are a lot of little things they could have done to make it more kickass. (But I really did like the flick! I swear!)

But there was one thing missing that I wanted to see. I wanted more Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence. What they gave us was pretty damn cool, but I wanted more of it. More often than not, when something awesome happened, I got excited and sat forward in my seat, expecting that awesome thing to springboard into something else even awesomer. The second, more awesomer event rarely followed. (Plus...it took an hour and fifteen minutes for the first incident of Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence to even occur! Too long! Anyways...)

For example: at one point Starscream flies in, transforms in mid-air while flipping up onto a bridge thingy at the Hoover Dam... I sit forward because I'm expecting him to start blowin' shit up now, right? I think he blew one thing up. And then stopped. Why, Starscream? Keep going!! They have your fucking leader frozen in there (and have for, like, 75 years or so?). This is the perfect opportunity for you to show off your retardedly reckless enthusiasm for violence in general, and yet you find that this is the time to pull an out-of-character moment of calmness and patience out of your ass?? WTF, jackoff?



Not that we would know what your character is like, since we got to see you like, 3 times, and only got to hear you speak like, once.

That happened to all of the Transformers, tho. We got to snuggle up to most of the human characters (mainly hot chick Fox, Shaia, and Josh Duhamel), but out of all the Robots, only Bumblebee and Prime got any real character development. If you're gonna ignore the Transformers as real characters, then you shoulda brought a helluva lot more robots than 5 Autobots and 6 1/2 Decepticons. I woulda preferred seeing two huge armies of nameless Giant Robots clashing on Earth instead of getting to know that Duhamel has a baby back home or that Shaia's parents love him... (As a matter of fact...I wanted to see WAY less of his parents in general.)

Back to Starscream... on the plus side, his flying transformations while destroying the Air Force planes he was hiding among was simultaneously fucking awesome and pretty terrifying. (It was the latter once you realize that he's KILLING the people inside said planes because that's something we're not used to, coming from a cartoon for kids. There were definitely no obligatory parachutes appearing in mid-air before those explosions, folks.) Also, even tho he had only, like, one line, it was definitely awesome and in character: "I live to serve you, Megatron, my master." Good ol' ass-kissing apple-polisher Starscream. Nice. I cheered a Geek Cheer(TM) after he spouted that shit.

I was not cheering, tho, earlier, when they chose to name one of the random Decepticons that were assembled on Earth "Devastator". He was not the collective entity that the Constructicons form when they get together. No. He was some sort of heavy-duty truck with a big rake or something on top of him. Whatever.



Needless to say I was all about it when Optimus fucked his shit up on the road. Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence = Good. Even though part of that battle looked like Robo-RollerDerby, it still kicked ass. Hard.



Hot raven-haired, blue-eyed (actress Megan) Fox chick was nice to look at. I didn't mind the story between she and Shaia until it DOMINATED the first HOUR of the movie. Too many humans. Not. Enough. Robot. Violence.



John Toturro's character? NO.



Although I didn't mind looking at the blonde Aussie, what the fuck was the point of her and Anthony "Kangaroo Jack" Anderson's characters? They didn't crack shit. Fuck them. Less fake tough-guy hacker goofball antics. Replace them with more Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence, please.



And while I'm (still) ranting about character disappointments...



You couldn't have made this little shit-head spy one of the tapes from Soundwave (btw...where was Soundwave)?? FUCK!! This could have been Ravage!!! I would have been soooo much more into his role in the plot if he had been Ravage!



Instead we're stuck with the nameless Decepticon equivalent of the damn Cookie Crisp Dog. Thanks. And although he did his part to increase the violence, most of his fights were against humans, not other robots, so no points there.



That doofy picture logically transitions us into my next complaint. Why were the Autobots portrayed as Keystone Cops? Ok, I admit it was good for a laugh...maybe for ONE minute. But not for 10. People! Seriously...we want VIOLENT ROBOTS. FUCKING HELL!! MORE!! (I was also ok with Bumblebee "peeing" on John Toturro's character. Mostly because BB was a good character, and the other guy was a purposeless douchebag...



Which reminds me... Bumblebee was cool as shit. Always has been, always will be... and somehow they didn't fuck that up too badly. Not being a VW Beetle almost did. And they almost fucked him up by not giving him a voice until the end... but his character was a shining beacon of hope for those faithful fans in the audience. The goofy part where he was helping out Sam (shoulda been Spike) with Hot Chick Fox with the annoyingly appropriate songs while he was alone with her was almost too long, but he showed us he is the same loyal Bumblebee we grew up with in the cartoons. He ended up being one of the only Transformers we really connected with.

The only other one was Optimus, and he kicked ass in the movie. I gave another Geek Cheer(TM) when he appeared in his Earthly form for the first time. And having the same voice actor as from the cartoon was really sweet and comforting in a totally badass way.



The only thing (and it's only a minor annoyance thing) I had a problem with concerning Prime was that too many times did they rely on saying his name to strike awe into the hearts of those listening. (Example: "And this...*pan up full length of Prime's body slowly*... is Optimus Prime!") I counted three such melodramatic moments when only one would have sufficed...

We really didn't get a chance to connect with Jazz before he was EFFORTLESSLY FUCKING RIPPED IN HALF. That was such a non-event before, during, and after it happened that it pissed me off. Hard. It was less of an event than Cyclops' death in X3...and that's saying something. Somebody throw the hip Autobrother a bone and shed some fucking lube over his passing, for shit's sake! (And I can't take credit for noticing, but someone brought to my attention that the first (only!) Autobot to actually die HAD to be the "black" guy?? Sheesh...how cliche.)

Ironhide was pretty cool, I guess... a bit more aggressive than I remember from the cartoons. But that's ok because it begat some seriously awesome Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence. And I don't remember seeing Ratchet in any of the fight scenes at all, or did I just miss him? Even so...what's that about? He's a medic, not a pussy. Throw him in there! You only have 5 Autobots to begin with. Goll.

Not that you would know that during the movie...the presence of either side's allies at any given time was hard to follow. In the final scene Optimus rolled up from outta nowhere and joins the fight that's been raging for at least 5 minutes already. Where the fuck was he all that time? Down on the corner getting a tune-up?

"Seriously, dude...when you said 'roll out,' we thought you'd be right behind us! Fuck! We've already lost half of Bumblebee and all that Jazz! Where the fuck have you been???"



And as for those all-important glasses...I'm not sure that I get how the info about the AllSpark got magically stored in the Witwicky glasses... That didn't seem to make much sense to me. Was it in ice crystals on the glasses? Cuz those would've melted away long ago. Was it engraved on the lens somehow? WTF? Shoddy writing, I think.

And you destroy the AllSpark by putting it to someone's chest? How the fuck is this thing still intact? How did it survive all of these years without being destroyed? How did they used to carry the damn thing around, back in the day? How has this thing never been destroyed before now? A feeble solution at best.



And turning the climax into a game of full-contact AllSparkBall? Only lame on a very basic level. It did inspire the MOST Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence, though, so I'll definitely let that one go. And check out the brass ones on Shaia, tho, for running fearlessly through all that Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence... and how he destroyed it was pretty slick. I'm sad at myself for not predicting that solution.

Prime vs. Megatron at the end = should have had more of this. Although the 'paint the target' of the helicopter dude ("Blackout?") thing was cool, there should have been WAY more coverage of the Big Two fighting. If the choice were put to me: See more of how the humans help destroy the Decepticons or See more of Optimus and Megatron mercilessly beating the hell out of each other in the ultimate exemplification of Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence...guess what I'd go with?

You got it. More Giant Robot-On-Giant Robot Violence. Plus, that scenario is right outta the cartoons, dude! It was always Optimus fighting Megatron, hand to hand, and it was always awesome! Optimus even tossed out the line "One will fall and one will stand"...straight outta the cartoon, baby (thanks to Paula and Joe for the heads up on that ref). Hardcore awesome.

Even after all of the whining and complaining I've done, I liked the movie. It was highly entertaining and provided quite a few Geek-Out Moments (TM). All in all I give it a solid 85/100. Definitely worth seeing in the theaters and it's highly likely that I'll buy it on DVD.